But I See You
by tinahhdee
Summary: "At seven-years-old, Gwen decides that she loves Merlin."  Modern AU


**Title:** But I See You

**Fandom**: Merlin

**Paring(s):** Gwen/Merlin, Arthur/Gwen (with Merlin/Freya & Merlin/Morgana)

**Rating:** light R

**Warnings:** EMOTIONAL WHUMPAGE! but it gets better, angst, allusions to abortion, non-graphic sexual situations,_ het_?

**A/N#1:** My love for this rare-pair is unfathomable. I hope that there are other people out there who appreciate the Mergwen like I do. By that I mean all the ~*romantic*~ possibilities...

**A/N#2:** Unbeta'd, all mistakes are my own. Reviews would be lovely, lovelies.

* * *

><p><strong>.<strong>

**x-x-x**

**7**

**x-x-x**

**.**

His name was Merlin. He rescued her from nefarious neighborhood ne'er-do-wells.

At seven-years-old, Gwen decides that she loves Merlin.

Merlin says he loves candied apples.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**8**

**x-x-x**

**.**

After only a year, they're inseparable.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**11**

**x-x-x**

**.**

Gwen and Merlin make a friend out of Freya, who recently turned eleven in the Fall.

Just like Merlin.

Freya is pale and shy. She loves candied apples, too.

Just like Merlin.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**13**

**x-x-x**

**.**

Merlin kisses Freya at the school dance. Freya doesn't expect it.

Neither does Gwen.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**15**

**x-x-x**

**.**

Merlin and Freya hold hands whenever they walk over to Gwen's house.

Gwen maybe looks at their linked hands a little too long and hesitates by the door before she lets them in.

Neither Merlin nor Freya notices.

Though if they did, they said nothing of it.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**17**

**x-x-x**

**.**

Freya leaves. Merlin is miserable.

But Gwen is there to pick him up from his bedroom floor.

They watch some cartoons.

**.x.**

Morgana Le Fay enrolls in Camelot High that year.

Merlin spills kefir on her new loafers.

When Morgana only laughs, bright and fond, Merlin turns red about the ears.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**18**

**x-x-x**

**.**

On Valentine's Day, Morgana receives a ton of presents, roughly equivalent to the number of boys in Camelot High.

Two of them are from Merlin.

Gwen goes home before classes are out. She feels rather ill.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**20**

**x-x-x**

**.**

Gwen stares at her course work dejectedly whilst waiting for Merlin at a local café in their university's campus grounds.

He waltzes in twenty minutes later with Morgana wrapped around one arm.

Gwen asks the waiter if she could have another packet of sugar for her coffee.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**21**

**x-x-x**

**.**

His name is Arthur. He's blond, posh, extremely fit, unfairly gorgeous and completely arrogant.

Gwen hates him on sight.

They take Contemporary Poetry 101 together.

**.x.**

Gwen literally runs into Arthur at a library in the Liberal Arts building one day.

She spills her books all over the floor.

But then Arthur smiles crookedly up at her from where he's knelt picking up her worn copy of Yeats' compiled works.

And Gwen sort of, maybe doesn't hate him all that much after all.

**.x.**

Arthur invites Gwen out to a pub after class.

They talk and laugh around a pint or two.

She thinks his eyes could be bluer. But she isn't complaining. Not when he's looking at her like _that_ as they lazily walk back to their common rooms.

Shoulders and elbows bumping together.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**22**

**x-x-x**

**.**

Gwen finally introduces Arthur to Merlin.

As her boyfriend.

Merlin hates him on sight.

He tells Gwen as much.

She rolls her eyes at him but she's smiling.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**24**

**x-x-x**

**.**

Arthur takes Gwen on a week-long mini-break to Northern Ireland.

They take a tour about an ancient castle on their second day.

For a moment, they pretend to be king and queen.

It was marvelous.

**.x.**

Merlin rings Gwen's mobile at one o'clock in the morning. He sounds frantic.

She slips on a coat, takes the tube down to his flat.

Gwen finds Merlin curled up on his bedroom floor.

_Morgana is pregnant_. _Three weeks along, it's mine_, he whispers. _But she doesn't want to keep it._

Gwen nods her head patiently, listening.

After an hour, she puts the kettle on boil. And they watch cartoons, just like old times.

**.x.**

Gwen doesn't leave Merlin's side for three days.

On the fourth day, Merlin finds a note stuffed along with his mail in the post.

It said:

_It's gone. I'm sorry. Goodbye. _

Merlin doesn't make a sound but Gwen holds him close anyway.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**25**

**x-x-x**

**.**

On her birthday, Arthur gifts her with a new wardrobe.

It came with a key.

Merlin gifts her _The_ _Pink Panther Complete Animated Series_ DVD box set.

Gwen packs it along with all her other keepsakes when she moves in with Arthur.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**26**

**x-x-x**

**.**

Gwen and Arthur have their first big fight. They push and they shove at each other.

Then he storms out on her mid-row.

**.x.**

Gwen opens the door hastily when she hear someone ring the bell two hours later.

She's startled to find Merlin standing on her front steps, a bag of candied apples cradled in one arm.

He wipes away her tears.

**.x.**

They fall asleep in the living room talking about everything and nothing at all.

_The Pink Panther_ dancing on the TV screen.

**.x.**

Arthur returns in the morning, looking sallow and wrecked and five different kinds of sorry. He kisses his pleas against the skin of Gwen's shoulder.

She responds with a litany of _I love you, I know, I love you _into his hair.

And Merlin lets himself out.

**.x.**

Merlin hardly comes around after that.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**27**

**x-x-x**

**.**

She's out to lunch with friends. It's a pleasant afternoon.

After dessert, Arthur pulls a small, velvet box out of his pants pocket. The ring inside looks like a small crown.

Gwen doesn't expect it.

Neither does Merlin.

**.x.**

Arthur and Gwen have the engagement party at a hotel Arthur's family happens to own.

Arthur's mother hugs the air clear out of her lungs.

Arthur's father gives her a kiss on the cheek.

She's nervous and excited all at the same time.

Late into the evening, a friend informs Gwen that Merlin won't be able to give his congratulatory speech.

He's gone home.

He's feeling a bit ill.

**.x.**

Merlin unexpectedly shows up at Gwen's work office the next day. He looks horrid.

_Have lunch with me_, Merlin says, by way of greeting.

It's three in the afternoon.

Gwen shuts down her computer anyway.

She can finish it at home.

**.x.**

Merlin walks Gwen to hers and Arthur's shared flat.

Stood by the door, she asks him to come in. He refuses.

Gwen sighs, cups his cheek affectionately to run a thumb across the dark circle around one eye. Her touch lingers a minute, tendering her goodbye. Merlin melts into it.

She withdraws to reach for her keys but Merlin is suddenly surging forward, capturing her face in his hands and pressing a small kiss to the corner of her mouth.

Then he's walking away.

**.x.**

She throws herself at Arthur that night.

The sex is a little rough.

And desperate around the edges.

When he races towards completion, Arthur instinctively bends down to kiss her. But Gwen turns away, offering up her neck instead.

He pants his release against the column of her throat.

Arthur moves down along her body, coaxing her with his tongue and his fingers. And she's seized by the memory of the weight and pressure of Merlin's fingers, stroking warmly against her cheeks. Something in her chest clenches and heat ignites, back arching off the mattress.

Her orgasm takes her by surprise.

The guilt doesn't.

**.x.**

Gwen can't bear looking at Arthur for the next few weeks.

**.x.**

She's in a bridal boutique somewhere in the heart of the city and Gwen thinks she's found _the one_.

The dress defines all her curves in all the right ways. It's simple yet positively sublime.

She's absently running her fingers down the front of it when Merlin appears from behind. Gwen sees him gazing at her through the mirror and she blushes.

_Stop looking at me like that._

_I can't help it. You're beautiful—_

Gwen turns around, eyes suddenly clouded with uncertainty. Pleading but wanting, angry but hopeful.

_Stop, _she says. _Please stop._

But Merlin pushes forward, insistent until he's crowded her against the mirror.

Pressing their foreheads together.

_I want you, Gwen. _He breathes and he traces two fingers along her collar bone. _I know you want me, too._

_I've wanted you for a long time, Merlin. But… you didn't see me when I needed you to. Arthur did._

_I see you, Gwen. I see you. God, I've been so blind, haven't I?_

_And you've caught on a bit too late, too, darling._

**.x.**

Gwen performs her part appropriately if a bit woodenly during the rehearsal dinner.

Arthur touches her here, kisses her there, trying to will the worry from her brow.

He doesn't comment on the way she keeps trailing her gaze past a particularly empty seat.

Or how her head snaps up whenever anyone walks through the restaurant doors.

For that, she's infinitely grateful.

**.x.**

The church bells sound awful, she thinks. Their clanging hangs low in the air – like a dark omen.

Gwen fastens the veil tighter into the curls of her hair.

She picks up her bouquet of violets.

The wedding march plays.

**.x.**

Merlin stares up at the cracked ceiling in his bedroom from where he lay on the floor. He has to have that fixed.

He supposes his heart needs a bit of a fixing, too.

**.x.**

At exactly twelve noon the door to Merlin's flat bangs open. He stumbles out of the kitchen spilling his tea in the process to find Gwen, standing by the hearth.

Her hair was tumbling down her shoulders. There were tear tracks on her face.

She still had her wedding dress on.

_I couldn't do it, _she wails. _I couldn't do it. Arthur was looking at me too expectant, too happy and I couldn't do it. This is entirely your fault! You come around with your apples; let me wipe my tears on the cuffs of your sleeves... You've ruined me!_

Merlin doesn't know what to say to that. So he keeps quiet.

_I broke his heart. I broke it! I broke it because I'm selfish. And I'm foolish. I traded in his affections because I wanted to watch cartoons on the telly forever. Wanted you... since I was seven years old. _

Gwen swipes a hand angrily over her eyes and Merlin's flying.

Across the room, well into her personal space – consequences be damned!

Because for a minute he thought he'd lost her.

He doesn't plan on letting that happen ever again.

Merlin pulls her into him, drawing her up against his chest to plunder her mouth.

She kisses him back after a moment's hesitation, reaching out, digging the pads of her fingers into his shoulder blades. Bringing them impossibly closer.

And finally, _finally, s_he thinks.

_See you. Gwen, let me see you._

Merlin fumbles with the laces of her dress, tugging at the fabric impatiently until it pools around her feet.

Then he surprises them both when he scoops her up in his arms to carry her to the bedroom.

Later they'd laugh at the irony.

Much, much later.

**.x.**

He presses their bodies flush when he's slipped inside her warmth for the first time, refusing to be apart. The contact makes him shiver all over and he moves.

They move.

And they move.

Merlin comes gasping Gwen's name hotly into her ear. She follows him over the edge, clinging with every part of her body. With all that she's got.

And she prays he won't let her go.

**.**

**x-x-x**

**30**

**x-x-x**

**.**

Arthur pays for lunch because he always pays for lunch.

And Gwen laughs out when he smiles that crooked smile of his.

Things are well.

**.x.**

They pop by the grocery to pick up a few things before heading home.

Gwen thoughtlessly walks past the apples.

**.x.**

She opens the door to their flat, groceries in one hand, keys in the other. And drip, drip goes the water down her face.

Gwen glares up at the cracks in the ceiling. They have to get that fixed.

**.x.**

_We have to get that fixed_.

She shoots Merlin an exasperated look. _I know._ _You said that last month._

_It was true then. Unfortunately, it's still true now. So. How goes Arthur?_

_He's well. Everything's well._

Merlin lays a kiss on her temple. _I'm glad._

And she is, too.

_Oh, by the way, there's still half a dozen apples in the fridge. So I crossed them out the list._

**.**

**x-x-x**

**end**

**x-x-x**

**.**


End file.
